Before I get into trouble with the people of the Basque region, please know that pinpointing your location within Spain is just recognizable for those unfamiliar with the country, region or your really good food.

Finding the genetic markers would give researchers the ability to find a cure for MS and also, possibly, a host of other autoimmune diseases. Finding a cure does not sit too well with companies who make millions (or as Mr. Termeer of Genzyme has postulated, billions) from just maintaining the disease.

Based on the tools developed by the Bioinformatics engineers at the University of the Country of Basque, BioDonostia is using the tools for medical research. It’s a cooperative research system where the objective isn’t a higher stock price, but actually working out a solution to our most basic human problems.

I just wanted to highlight the fact that this research is taking place–but not in this country where we have a lot of money being thrown at Multiple Sclerosis: a lot of fundraisers, a lot of 501(c)(3)’s raising millions to fund research but also to fund salaries, rent on high priced real estate, brochures touting their work, and the other expenses with running a high profile foundation.

Could it be that money isn’t given to fund research to find a cure when so money is to be made from not finding a cure?

My understanding of finding the genetic marker for any disease would be, as Mr. Inza puts it above, worthy of a Nobel Prize. The rest of the article is here, and I urge you to read it. It is incredibly interesting, especially for you nerdy people out there like me, how these researchers are converting the genes into numbers and then using a DNA chip (which fits in your hand) to store the information. Your genome on a chip!

Now research that used to take decades on a single gene can be sorted out much more quickly. With the use of the chip, a researcher can begin to look at the genetic make-up of someone with Multiple Sclerosis and compare that DNA with someone without the disease and see where the genetic differences may lie. We hope they succeed quickly.

“When the DNA from a sample of a person’s body is inserted behind the chip, each gene goes to its allotted slot, as it were”, stated Mr Inza. Then images of colours, partitioned into these slots, are obtained. These colours represent “levels of intensity and are proportional to the level of expression of each one of these genes. These are translated into numbers”. José Antonio Lozano adds, “The numbers express a level of fluorescence, the intensity of the signal.” With these numbers, computer models enter the scene.